Vina quarterback Tyler Renfrow (3) looks for a receiver in the Red Devils’ game last Friday. Photo by Matt Wilson.

By Matt Wilson

For the FCT

The Vina Red Devils dropped another lopsided decision Oct. 24 on the road to Shoals Christian, 48-14, to put them in the six-spot of Class 1A Region 8 standings.

The Red Devils finish their season Oct. 31 at home to Holy Spirit Catholic from Tuscaloosa.

Vina entered the season on a dismal losing streak stretching across two seasons. But a new head coach and staff looked to turn things around for the program and on Sept. 5 in front of a home crowd, the Red Devils got their first win in a long time against 1A Region 8 opponent Waterloo.

Rebuilding a high school football program is not an easy task and there are plenty of programs across the state at every classification to illustrate that point. Ardmore of 5A Region 8 is in the AHSAA record books as having 33 consecutive losses from 1999-2002. This season they aren’t exactly blowing the doors off but they are 2-7 overall and played a few competitive games this season in a tough region.

There is a team like Phil Campbell that is literally rebuilding their program. Since April of 2011 they have had to put everything back together in their lives and sometimes that meant putting football on the backburner for a little while. But Phil Campbell has pride in their community and in their high school football program. They currently sit fourth in 2A Region 8 at 3-3 and 4-5 overall. They are going to the playoffs in two weeks.

Then you have a team like Deshler in Tuscumbia that has seemingly been reeling for the past few years as they have lost coaching staff members to deaths including the recent shocking death of head coach Jake Linville who had just taken over this season for the long-time head coach John Mothershed. Linville might not have been rebuilding the program at Deshler this season as Deshler sits atop the 4A Region 8 standings at 7-0 and 8-1 overall, but now that team, that school, and that community will be rebuilding broken hearts and the center of their coach staff.

The point is that what Vina head coach Luke Childers and his team are trying to do is one of the hardest things to do in high school sports: turn a losing football program into a winning program. Basketball teams can come across one or two great athletes and the next thing you know that team is close to unbeatable. A baseball team can get one dominant pitcher or one batter that can’t miss and that can carry a program. With football it is different because it takes a whole team to win just one game. One game is hard enough to win, but to turn a program around there will have to be many more wins to come.

Vina has a good chance of winning their second game of the season Oct. 31 when they square up with Holy Spirit and that would mean the second win over three long seasons for the Red Devils. But it could also mean a win for the program as a whole moving forward.